See You Next Fall
by bohemiankat
Summary: RENTfic. Mark and the gang go on a roadtrip.
1. Prologue

A/N: The only good thing about sick days is the fact that you have hours of free time before all the good TV shows come on, in which you can write fanfiction. Not exactly sure how long this piece is going to be... Anyway...  
  
Mark woke before everyone else, and set his camera on a tripod. He panned across the loft, and whispered, "I'm gonna miss this place. September seventeenth, five AM, Eastern Standard Time... Today, Roger, Mimi, Collins, and I leave the loft in favor of hitting the open road. I thought I'd shoot some film before we left. Y'see, Roger's sick again. He's only got a few months left, the doctors say. Maybe a year. But they always say that. Anyway, the other day, he told me that he's never left New York. So we put our heads together. Time for a roadtrip across America. We think we can cover most of the Eastern half of the country by May. Then, it's on to the West. And after that, if there is an after that, who knows. Maybe Canada. Smile!"   
  
With that, he turned off the camera, detached it from the tripod, and but both in an old backpack, which he slung over one shoulder.   
  
"Come on, guys! Rise and shine!" There was a collective 'Shut up, Mark!' from the group. He tried again a few hours later. At precisely eight-thirty, Maureen and Joanne showed up at the front door with suitcases. Maureen gave Mark a hug goodbye, and tousled his spiky blond hair.  
  
"Thanks for letting us watch the place for you, Marky. We'll take good care of it. Now you gotta take good care of Roger, hear?" she paused. "Aww, Pookie, I'm gonna miss you so much!"   
  
"Maureen, would you- would you pull yourself together? I'm coming back! Sheesh!" He pulled free from her grip, and came face to face with Joanne, who extended a hand for him to shake.  
  
"Goodbye, Mark."  
  
"Bye, Joanne. Thanks," he called again to Mimi, Roger and Collins, "Guys, we're leaving now! I swear, these people move like a herd of turtles!" Slowly, suitcases in hand, Roger and Collins arrived in the main room. "Where's Mimi?" asked Mark.  
  
"Don't know. She woke up around four, and said something about cars, and she'd be back later." Roger yawned, and ran a hand through his messy hair.  
  
"That's right, I put Mimi in charge of finding transportation. Why did I do that?"  
  
Not a minute later, Mimi came bounding up the stairs.  
  
"Hey, guys! I hot wired a van, and it's waiting outside! Let's go, already!" Mark gaped at her; Collins chuckled.  
  
"Alright Mimi! I like the way you think."   
  
"Thank you," she smiled. One by one, Mimi, Collins, and Roger said their goodbyes to Maureen and Joanne, and headed out the door with their suitcases, until only Mark, Maureen, and Joanne were left.  
  
"I guess this is goodbye..."  
  
"Yeah." Mark grabbed his bag and stepped out into the hall.  
  
"Marky, have a nice trip! See you next fall!" Maureen called. Too late, he was already gone. 


	2. Chapter 1

With Collins behind the wheel, Mark in the passenger's seat, and Mimi and Roger in the back, the gang set off on their trip. Mark unfolded a large map of the United States, which took up most of the dashboard.  
  
"Everyone, quick. Name some place you wanna see."  
  
"Chicago."  
  
"Washington D.C."  
  
"Roge, what about you?" Mark prompted.  
  
"Uh, maybe Cincinnati."   
  
"Cool... but why?" asked Mimi.  
  
"I dunno. Hear there are some good music schools in Cincinnati. I'd just like to see them." Mark looked at the giant map, and began to plan out a route.   
  
"Go to D.C. first. It's closest."  
  
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Collins stepped on the gas and pulled away from the curb, as they waved goodbye to the loft.  
  
In the back seat, Roger put on his headphones and turned up the CD player volume as loud as it would go. He rested his head on the window, and fell asleep until Mimi poked him in the side.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I gotta ask you something. You said you've never left New York... What about Santa Fe?"  
  
"I never went."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I never went. I bought a car, packed a suitcase, went through the trouble of buying postcards that said 'Greetings from Santa Fe' on them, but I never actually got there."  
  
"Where did you go?" asked Mark.  
  
"Your house. I stayed at your old place back in Scarsdale, and asked your mom not to say anything to you about it. Figured she probably told you by now, anyway."  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Then why did I tell you that?" He looked around at them all, then faced the window and closed his eyes. Mimi sighed.  
  
"I hate it when he does that."  
  
Hours later, they found themselves in a traffic jam.  
  
"Where the hell are we?"  
  
"Gee, Mark, you were supposed to be the navigator, shouldn't you know?"  
  
"I never said anything about being the navigator..."  
  
"It's assumed that when you sit in the passenger's seat, and you have the map, that you're going to be the navigator."  
  
"Where did you learn that, Collins?"  
  
"Everyone knows that." At which point, Roger thought it might be a good idea to lead them all in a rousing chorus of "Ninety-nine bottles".  
  
"Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall! Ninety-nine bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall! Question, who puts beer on a wall?"   
  
"How 'bout we don't sing anymore," suggested a tired-looking Mimi.  
  
"You're right! Time for the license plate game!" Roger peered out the window. "There's a Kentucky license plate! Beat that!" he laughed. And thus began the license plate game competition...  
  
A/N: I'm trying to balance out the sad and the funny in this story. I know the title sounds funny, but it's actually not supposed to be... because they left New York in the fall (September) and some people are going to return in the fall. But I'm not saying who...you'll have to keep reading to find out!! Question: Where else do you think they should stop in the Eastern U.S.? 


	3. Chapter 2

"September twenty-first, ten PM, Eastern Standard Time... Only four days in, and already, patience is wearing a little thin. I swear, if Roger sings "ninety-nine bottles" again, I'm going to have to kill him. I've decided to keep a video journal of our trip, from start to...finish. Pan across the cheapest hotel room we could find in the greater D.C. area. There's Collins at the desk, counting our money. Close on Roger. Goodnight, Roger..." At that, Roger opened an eye, glared at Mark, and closed it again. "Maybe now isn't the best time to film. Until morning." Mark switched the camera off, and set it on the floor, by his coat, which now served as a bed, due to the hotel's shortage of roll-away cots.  
  
Mimi came in from the hallway holding a bucket of ice.  
  
"This place is the best! Free ice!" She ate a handful of it, then offered it to Mark. "Want some?"  
  
"Nah...thanks. I can't stand the sound of people eating ice. It's like nails on a chalkboard or something."  
  
"You're weird, Mark," she observed, and sat down next to Roger on the bed. Mark took a notebook out of his coat pocket and quietly flipped through it, occasionally making little tally marks. "What're you doing now?"  
  
"Counting all the license plates I spotted today."  
  
"You mean, you're actually participating in that stupid competition?"  
  
"Yeah... I'm up to twenty-three," he announced, quite proudly.   
  
"Leave it to guys to come up with something like...counting license plates."  
  
She rolled her eyes and turned off the light. "Night, Mark. Collins."  
  
When he was sure they were asleep, Mark turned his camera back on, this time pointing it towards his own face.  
  
"Close on Mark... who happens to like stupid license plate games. For the record, I have my doubts about this trip. I'm glad for Roger's sake that we're not all cooped up in the loft anymore. And while the 'road trip' thing is a nice concept, in theory, how are we going to survive? I mean, Collins can only rewire so many ATMs... And that money's gonna have to pay for food, hotels, AZT, and possibly hospital bills. What have we gotten ourselves into? Note to self: tape over this part."  
  
In the morning, Mark woke up around noon. Roger was up, rapidly changing channels on the hotel TV; Mimi was still sleeping soundly, and Collins had gone out- presumably to find food. Mark yawned.  
  
"I call first shower!" With that, he hopped up from the floor and barricaded himself in the bathroom before anyone could say otherwise. Roger continued to channel surf, before finally settling on some obscure news station he'd never heard of. The newscaster spoke in a monotonous, rambling fashion, which didn't exactly work for any of the stories he was covering. Roger shook his head.  
  
"What is this shit?" He rose and went to the window, throwing back the curtains. The city down below was already awake and full of life and he wanted to be there in the middle of it all...  
  
He hurriedly scrawled a note to Mimi and Mark, telling them to meet him at a deli a few blocks away from the hotel. He grabbed his leather jacket, and headed out the door.   
  
The deli was packed with people on their lunch breaks, clutching briefcases and looking agitated. Roger looked all around for a table, and found Collins sitting at his own little table near the back. "Mind if I join you?"  
  
"Not at all. Pull up a chair."  
  
Back in the hotel room, Mimi slowly opened her eyes, and glanced around the room. She heard water running, which meant that someone was, at least, still here. A note on the bedside table caught her attention. Scrawled in Roger's chicken scratch, she could just barely pick out the words 'meet me at the deli.'  
  
"Roger needs to learn how to write," she mused, as she got out of bed, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and grabbed one of Roger's old sweatshirts. She waited a few minutes before heading down to the deli, where she found Roger and Collins.   
  
When Mark found the same hastily scribbled note, about twenty minutes later, he too joined them at the deli. As he walked through the door, a bell rang overhead, signaling that another customer had entered.  
  
"Wow, that's cool..."  
  
"Mark, over here!" Collins called to the distracted filmmaker, who in turn, came to sit with them. "What do you want to eat?"  
  
"Bagel, I guess. What do you guys say we hit some museums today?"  
  
After breakfast, they walked to the National Gallery of Art. Collins led the way to one of the modern art floors. He pointed at a mobile, suspended several stories above the main level.  
  
"Isn't this cool?"   
  
"Collins, it's pieces of metal hanging from the ceiling. I could do that," announced an already bored Roger.   
  
"I'd really like to see that, Roge."  
  
"Yeah... I'd cut different random shapes out of metal, and, you know, tie them together, and hang 'em from the ceiling. I'd have a guitar shape, and a square, and a rectangle, and maybe a few triangles... Then I'd call it modern art, and sell it for about a hundred times what I paid for the metal to begin with."  
  
"Roger Davis, yours is truly a mind unlike any other. And I mean that..."  
  
"Thanks, Collins. I'm gonna take that as a compliment..." 


End file.
